Ok so I am 14 with some knowledge on speakers/amps/speaker placement and sound quality. My uncle asked me to pick out and install an outdoor speaker system for his yard. I plan on using 3 or 4 pairs of speakers, and a stereo receiver to control everything. I was wondering what I needed to power everything because I am not sure if just the stereo receiver is going to cut it. I am also not sure if I would need an amp, and if I do how would I connect that back to the stereo receiver which I plan to use to govern the whole system. Also, what are some quality speakers/stereo recievers/amps that won't completely bankrupt my uncle. I may be totally wrong about everything, and if so please correct because I'm still fairly new at this. Thanks for the advice.

Ok so I am 14 with some knowledge on speakers/amps/speaker placement and sound quality. My uncle asked me to pick out and install an outdoor speaker system for his yard. I plan on using 3 or 4 pairs of speakers, and a stereo receiver to control everything. I was wondering what I needed to power everything because I am not sure if just the stereo receiver is going to cut it. I am also not sure if I would need an amp, and if I do how would I connect that back to the stereo receiver which I plan to use to govern the whole system. Also, what are some quality speakers/stereo recievers/amps that won't completely bankrupt my uncle. I may be totally wrong about everything, and if so please correct because I'm still fairly new at this. Thanks for the advice.

Hi David, welcome to the club! You will get some great advice here, I know I have.

I must say that for 14 you write quite well! It would be our pleasure to help you out,
Brian

Well he said that he wanted it to be good, and that he wants it to last. Still though I wouldn't push more than $650, especially since it is not my money. I have picked out $300 worth of speakers that will be fine for the space, because it is still just his vacation home not Carnegie Hall. The rest of the money I planned to spend on a receiver/amps, but if I am being unrealistic on price I could explain to them the reason they would need to pay more and that would probably be fine, but $650 is the ideal budget.

So I did some more research and this is what I came up with. I found an Onkyo HT-R2295 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver for $300 that puts out 130 watts per channel, I think that should be fine since the speakers I picked out can't handle more than 100 watts of power anyway. Now I know these receivers are designed for surround sound systems, and I'm pretty sure but its always good to clarify, but I can just plug each speaker into its own channel and it will sound Ok right? Even if these speakers aren't necessarily designed specifically for a surround sound system it should still work, or am I wrong?

The specs on these speakers say they will work well with an amplifier up to 35 watts of power so I know 130 watts per channel is way too much power, and I know that too much power will damage the speakers. Does anyone know of a receiver with less power per channel with the same amount of channels, or should I maybe daisy chain the speakers together? Thanks for the advice.

You should be fine with the Onkyo which will not be feeding 130 watts to all speakers just the front two. Just a guess but feeding 6 or 7 speakers probably be 70 or 80 watts to each individual. Under powering the speakers is more detrimental than over powering speakers as you will just have more head room (extra power). Just do not feed more power to the speakers to the level of distortion and you should be fine.

I need to state I have never done what you are doing. But I can also state that Yamaha has a 7 channel stereo mode. That mode can be used to easily power 7 speakers, though placement might be an interesting problem as it likely assumes the usual L/C/R, LS, LBS, RBS, RS layout.

Another way to hookup say 8 speakers, is with a box that attempts to ensure a minimal resistance load on the receiver.

If you are comfortable with very basic electronics, you cam combine series and parallel wiring to yield the same results, which is to present an 8 ohm load to the receiver.

If you want to spring for a more expensive solution there are multi-channel amps designed for the sort of use you want. There's also the possibility of using stacks of pro amps such as Crown amps. If you use amps in combination with a receiver, you will need a receiver with pre out jacks, which is sadly only available on higher end models. However, you could maybe get by with using the zone outputs of a receiver, but zones can be complex in terms of what conditions under which they will work (I won't attempt to explain it, as it's been a few years since I have bought a receiver and don't know the current limitations.)

Just remember you need to present, at minimum a 4 ohm load to most amp/receivers or for many receivers 8 ohm load for any channel. Failing to do this can shut down the receiver or worse